New 'crisis' threatens in North Korea

March 25 2003

North Korea today claimed the United States may attack the communist state, sparking a "second Iraqi crisis".

Labelled by US President George W Bush as part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran, North Korea fears that it may be targeted after the US-led attack on Baghdad. It accuses Washington of inciting the dispute over its suspected nuclear weapons programs to create an excuse for invasion.

"No-one can vouch that the US will not spark the second Iraqi crisis on the Korean Peninsula," North Korea's state-run Minju Joson newspaper said.

North Korea will "increase its national defence power on its own without the slightest vacillation no matter what others may say", the paper said.

Pyongyang said yesterday that Washington is using the war against Iraq as a test for military action against the North.
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South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday dismissed the allegation as "inaccurate and groundless". He said US officials have repeatedly pledged to resolve the issue peacefully.

Early this month, Bush said he believed the standoff could be resolved diplomatically, but noted that it could be resolved militarily if diplomacy fails.

South Korea is a strong ally of the United States, which has 37,000 troops based in the South.

Tensions between the two Koreas have been mounting over the nuclear crisis.

The North suspended a meeting with South Korea this week after Seoul put its military on heightened alert amid fear that North Korea might use the distraction of war in Iraq to attempt provocations. It said the South Korean move pushed the situation to "the brink of war".

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher called North Korea's cancellation of this week's bilateral meeting "regrettable".

"We have always supported North-South dialogue," Boucher said. "We think it's important to resolve the bilateral issues. And it's a good channel to make clear to the North Koreans that they must end their nuclear arms program."

With the United States focused on Iraq, experts fear North Korea might use the opportunity to test a long-range missile or reprocess spent nuclear fuel to make atomic bombs. That would be viewed as an attempt to force Washington into direct negotiations. The United States only wants talks with the North in a multilateral setting.

The standoff flared in October when US officials said Pyongyang admitted having a secret nuclear program in violation of a 1994 pact.

Washington and its allies suspended oil shipments, promised under that agreement, and Pyongyang retaliated by taking steps to reactivate a nuclear facility capable of producing several bombs within months and withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.